Fear Enters In

Last night I entertained fear.  I had a small 'tiff'' with my husband at a football game and ended up walking home at half time.  I spoke of this in my last Blog entry.  Every time I have a fight with him, big or small, especially if it leads to 'not speaking', fear always comes into the picture.  

In my youth, I was constantly bombarded with hurt, deception and fear because of broken relationships.  It seemed like there wasn't much hope for me in the love department and after awhile, I gave up on ever having someone in my life.  

Becoming a Christian gave me other options for my future instead of being a wife and mother.  I decided I could serve the Lord on a full time basis.  I just needed to know what direction that was going to take.  As I played with that idea, my husband came into my life. Everything turned around.  I can honestly say that God gave me a choice though.  It was up to me to choose marriage or singularly serving God.  I chose marriage.  I was hesitant about it and even gave him chances to back out of it too.  But we got married and my journey down that path began.  

It took 15 years to learn how to communicate with him and to be able to trust the Lord for  faithfulness in our marriage.  I constantly looked for him to cheat, or leave me and go on with another woman.  At one point, I was even jealous of my sister!  But I learned an incredible life lesson through all of that!  When God chooses your mate, you can't go wrong!  
When I say 'God chooses', I mean that.  He does the choosing; you do the obeying.  You throw away your 'what kind of guy do I want' lists.  You know:  dark hair, same likes and dislikes, maybe a musician, good talker, etc., etc., etc.  We all have them and for the most part, they're all wrong.  Why?  Because we usually pick guys like us or like our fathers, or someone that can 'make us happy'.  If you aren't happy going into a marriage, a guy isn't going to do the trick.  Marriage is a two way street and if you expect someone else to make your day, or future, you're headed for a huge disappointment.

But, even after 15 years of marriage and things panning out, I still got those feelings of fear after we'd have a fight or disagreement.  The enemy gets in there immediately and grabs hold of certain situations because he knows our weaknesses.  He knows what will throw us out of balance.  This one, for me, was huge.  

The thoughts start pouring in... 'He's got someone in mind and now that you two aren't talking, he's going to do more than look.'    'What if he leaves?  What are you going to do?  How will you live?  Can you afford to live on your own?  How will you cope with the depression of losing another male relationship?  Will you be able to function while in that mode?'    'I'm just going to leave, take some money and disappear!  He won't know where I am and then he'll be sorry.'    'He doesn't care about me!  Why should I care about him?'  

All these thoughts come flooding into my mind....almost at once.  It never fails.  Then I have to sort them out, one by one, and reason why each one is not the truth before I finally realize that this is only a trick of the deceiver and I shouldn't be entertaining those thoughts anyway.

Why... after all these years, don't I know that right off the bat?  Why do people go through depression when they know there's usually no reason for it in the first place?  Why is the world round?  Questions like these seem to have a simple answer.  But, for the most part, they are very complex and there's no one answer for any of them.  Robin Williams said to his friend, Dick Cavett, "I hate when people say, "what do you have to be depressed about?"  Nobody knows what's going on inside someone.  Nobody knows the demons they deal with and until you do, you can't ask an ignorant question like that.

Depression comes from many sources and fear is one of them.  There's only one remedy for fear. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love drives out fear: because fear has torment.  He that fears is not made perfect in love."  I John 4:18  

In other words, 'love' here means God.  If you know the Father God and His son Jesus, you can dispel fear because you've got the greatest gift in the world.  You've got the person who created everything, living in your heart.  You've got the One who gave His own life to set you free from sin and death and FEAR.  All you have to do is say the scripture verses that pertain to fear vs. love, and the enemy can't stay anymore.  He can't reside in the same place with love...God is love.  God resides in your heart; the enemy can't be there too.

Do you want to live in fear or be set free?  You have a choice.  You're still alive in this body.  You can choose to be under God's tutelage or under the thumb of the enemy, the deceiver, the liar of all liars and the bringer of fear.  Which one are you going to choose?